


rainbows + rain

by narcissablaxk



Category: Cobra Kai (Web Series), Karate Kid (Movies)
Genre: Christmas, Cliche, F/F, M/M, Past Johnny/Ali, Pen Pals, Romance, Secret Identities, Teen Lawrusso, dash and lily, meet cute
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:26:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27769747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narcissablaxk/pseuds/narcissablaxk
Summary: Do you dare…?Well, did he?He flipped the first page open.I’ve left some clues for you. If you want them, turn the page. If you don’t, put the notebook back on the shelf.orA Karate Kid version of Dash and Lily
Relationships: Daniel LaRusso/Johnny Lawrence, Jessica Andrews/Julie Pierce
Comments: 19
Kudos: 68





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't watched Dash and Lily on Netflix yet, please do! It's insanely cute, and this fic is definitely my version with Johnny and Daniel. Many characters from the Miyagi-verse will appear here, in many different ways. I hope you enjoy my take on this extra-cute Christmas story!

Winter in New York City was magical – it was a modern fairytale. At least, that’s what Daniel LaRusso thought. The streets were littered with little piles of snow, the lights twinkled, music leaked out of every storefront, trees lined the streets – it was like everyone in the city decided to be part of one huge family, and they all loved each other. His own family loved Christmas like he did – they decorated the apartment perfectly, they made platters of food, they sang carols – and even when part of his family went to New Jersey and he and his mother stayed in New York, he still loved it. So the apartment wasn’t full to bursting with people. It didn’t matter. 

What mattered was that he could still celebrate Christmas. 

It got even better when his mother rented out a room in their apartment to help make rent. Jessica Andrews quickly became his best friend, and she was just another person he could pull into the Christmas spirit, even if she and her girlfriend broke up over Christmas last year. 

He wished he had some kind of Christmas romance. That was what all of the movies showed, after all. But, as Jessica said, you can’t force love. So, he didn’t. 

He could enjoy Christmas without love. He had before, and he would again. 

***

Christmas in New York – the most detestable time of the year. Johnny stood at the entrance to the 21st Street subway station and looked around. There were Christmas trees lining the sidewalk, people in their scarves and hats milling around as if they were actually going to buy one (they weren’t, not these Upper East Side types with their manicures and Starbucks cups), carolers a few yards back working their way studiously toward the third verse of “Joy to the World,” their words slurred and enough lyrics dropped that Johnny was convinced they were about to give up altogether. 

His phone beeped, and he slid it out of his pocket. It was a text from his mother. She was on her way to Hawaii with her new boyfriend, some hedge fund manager that Johnny found intensely boring, but he was kind and rich, and his mother deserved kind and rich. 

“You sure you’re going to be okay at your dad’s?” 

He wanted to correct her – Sid was and always would be his step-dad, not his dad, but the distinction would take too long to type. He sent a thumbs up and settled for that.

He was slipping his phone into his pocket when someone shoulder-checked him – he caught sight of a bright red jacket and silver tinsel that exploded all over his own coat before the person was gone. 

“Oh, come on, tinsel?” he exclaimed, brushing off the glitter of Christmas decorations. 

The person called back “Merry Christmas!” as an apology. 

He flicked the last of the tinsel off his shoulder and followed his assailant with his eyes. Red jacket, dark jeans, dark hair…and then he turned around, and Johnny caught sight of golden-brown eyes, warm and sparkling with the reflection of Christmas lights, joy alight in his face. He settled next to the carolers and started singing. He caught Johnny’s gaze and looked down, bashful.

“Well, at least someone knows the words,” Johnny muttered with a smile.

***

Johnny loved the Strand. When he was younger, he spent a lot of time in the bookstore, wandering the shelves. He didn’t like to read, necessarily, but a bookstore was a safe place he could run to when Sid started yelling and his mother didn’t want him to be in the apartment. There were always people around, and sometimes the halal stand outside gave him some free French fries.

And then things with Sid got worse, and instead of wandering the stacks, Johnny started reading the books instead. It was an easy escape, one he continuously wished he’d embraced earlier. How many arguments could he have ignored by reading instead of fighting? He would never know. 

Now, with his mother on a flight to Hawaii and Sid on his way to Switzerland, the Strand was the only family he had left in the city. 

He dropped a book off at the information desk (Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_ and Kafka’s _Metamorphosis_ were not interchangeable, thank you very much), and wandered back to the Salinger section. There was something about Salinger that Johnny found himself drawn to. Maybe it was the tragic characters, or the main character in _Franny and Zooey_ reminded him of his mother, he didn’t know. Either way, he was always finding himself back here – 

And there was a red notebook on the shelf, right where it wasn’t supposed to be.

He pulled it from the shelf. It was a notebook, alright, and it definitely shouldn’t be in the fiction section.

He took it back to information, where the surly man whose name was – he squinted at the nametag – Antonio, took one look at the notebook and turned his back to Johnny, picking the phone up from its cradle and holding it to his ear like he was talking to someone. 

Johnny could hear the dial tone.

“Hey,” he said, waving the red notebook like a flag. “This was mis-shelved too.”

Still, Antonio didn’t turn around.

Johnny sighed. Fine. If he didn’t want to put the stupid notebook back where it was supposed to go, Johnny would just do it himself. He turned on his heel and walked away, dropping the red notebook to his side, his peripherals just barely catching the black writing on the front. 

_Do you dare…?_

Well, did he?

He flipped the first page open.

_I’ve left some clues for you. If you want them, turn the page. If you don’t, put the notebook back on the shelf._

Johnny stared at the handwriting. Did he accidentally stumble into a weird couple’s Christmas game? Or a serial killer’s lure? He shifted in his jacket, a silver piece of tinsel freeing itself from the crook of his elbow and fluttering to the floor. 

He turned the page. 

_So you’ve chosen to play. A revealing choice. Shall we begin?_

He turned the page again, a smile creeping over his face. On the next page, there were eight blank lines. 

_A coded message,_ the notebook said underneath the lines. _You can decipher it with the right books. But only if you can find them. Your first clue requires some heavy reading. Look for Critical Literature Theory._

Literature theory? Johnny had never even heard of literary theory. Was that even a thing, or did this notebook person just make it up? He pulled his phone out of his pocket. 

_Oh, and if you have to use your phone, don’t bother playing._

He chuckled under his breath and tucked his phone back into his pocket. He looked up and caught Antonio watching him curiously. He trotted over, Antonio unconvincingly trying to look busy as he did. 

“I’m looking for _Critical Literature Theory_ ,” he said, his finger marking the page of the notebook. 

“Sorry, can’t help you,” Antonio said, his face just flat enough that Johnny knew he wasn’t kidding. 

“This…is the information desk, isn’t it?” 

Antonio irritatingly didn’t even bother to look up from the computer this time, his index finger listlessly pressing the buttons on the keyboard. 

“I’m sorry did I like, wrong you, or something?” Johnny asked. “Did I buy you a James Patterson book for Christmas? He’s not even that bad, honestly –”

“I’m not allowed,” Antonio interrupted. “I promised him I wouldn’t discuss anything related to that.” He dipped his head toward the notebook in Johnny’s hand.

“Him? You said him,” Johnny said, pointing with the notebook. “So a boy wrote this?” 

Antonio crossed his arms over his chest. “That a problem?” 

Johnny shrugged. “No,” he said, opening the notebook and looking at it again. “So he’s testing my knowledge of the Strand.” He looked down at the clue again. “Thanks for your help!” he called to Antonio. 

“I didn’t help you!” 

“Yes, you did!” 

Okay, Clue Boy, Johnny thought, eyes searching the department signs hanging from the ceiling. Let’s do this. 

He found _Critical Literature Theory,_ a huge tome of a book at the top of the shelves in the Cultural Studies section. He had to climb up the stacks to get it. An old woman walked underneath him while he did, nonchalantly looking at a list of titles in her hand while Johnny weakly asked her to watch out. 

It was a code. He flipped to page 77, line 4, and found two words. 

_Are you -_

Am I what? He thought. 

The next book was _Nightfilm._ Mystery section. He’d read that one – it wasn’t hard to find.

_Going –_

His heart was beating too fast. There were five blanks left. 

The next one was a clue – 

_This next book isn’t a Christmas story, but Santa does make an appearance._

“ _The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe,_ ” he said out loud to no one. He took off running, as if there was a clock counting down on him, and dodged past the same old woman from the Cultural Studies section again. 

_To be –_

He held the book tightly in his hand. _The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe_ was one of the first books he’d read in its entirety in one day, sitting in these very stacks. Suddenly it seemed important to hold onto it. He was sweating slightly in his coat now, and wished he’d left it hanging on a hook somewhere. 

_Now, this book is a classic, but there’s something about it that always rubbed me the wrong way. Can you guess what it was?_

Easy, Johnny thought, Santa Claus gave a kid a knife. 

_If you said Santa arming an eight-year-old, this can continue._ Johnny laughed, his hand over his mouth, and looked around to see if anyone saw him laughing at a notebook like a weirdo. _Now, your last book is the most popular book in Sex and Sexuality._

He didn’t have to look hard to find the book Clue Boy meant. 

_The Joys of Gay Sex._

The word he was looking for was –

_Lonely –_

He turned the page, and a sheet of paper shook loose. He caught it before it hit the floor and pushed it back between the pages.

“Johnny?” 

Barbara Steinbeck was standing at the end of the aisle, arms crossed over her chest. Johnny wanted to roll his eyes at the sight of her. She was his ex-girlfriend’s best friend – and that meant she definitely wasn’t his friend at all. 

“Hey Barb.” 

“What are you doing here?” she asked. “No one is in the city.” 

You are, he wanted to point out. But, as usual, she kept talking. 

“Everyone’s in Bora Bora or Cancun for the holiday. I’m only here to find a book for my little sister. She’s really into fantasy –”

“That’s right,” Johnny said. “At your party last year, she tried to challenge me to a duel.” 

“Yeah, about that party,” Barbara said, and finally she looked a little uncomfortable. Good. “If I had known you were in town, I totally would have invited you to my Christmas Eve party –”

No, she wouldn’t, because they weren’t friends. Accidentally being in the same room because of a girlfriend and best friend, respectively, did not mean you were friends. 

“You should come by,” she was saying now. “I mean, Ali is going to be there.” 

“Oh, well, my dad is taking me to Sweden tomorrow,” Johnny interrupted. That was the only way to get a word in edgewise with Barbara anyway. 

“Sweden?” she said skeptically, like she didn’t believe him, which, shit, would be astute of her. 

“Yep,” Johnny shrugged. “You know all those long, Swedish nights. Super restful.” He cleared his throat. “Did you say Ali was going to be there?” 

“Yeah,” Barbara said, a sly glint to her eye. “She’s back in the city. Just for the holiday.” Her eyes fell to the book in his arms. _The Joys of Gay Sex._ “Anything she should, uh…know?” 

Johnny felt the urge to roll his eyes. “Tell her I’m trying new things.” 

She blinked, and he remembered the other book he was holding. “Oh, and here –” he held out _The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe._ “For your sister. She’ll like this.” 

“Thanks,” Barbara said, but her eyes were still on the other book. 

He didn’t say goodbye. He was already turning back to the notebook. 

_The fact that you were willing to stand in the Strand holding The Joys of Gay Sex bodes well for our future. However, a few rules. If you are not a teenager, please return the notebook to the shelf._

He hurriedly flipped the page. 

_Love is a spectrum. But if boys aren’t on yours, please put the notebook back on the shelf. And finally, if you’ve made it this far, you’re obviously clever, but I want to know…_

He turned the page again, almost tearing the page out. A sheet of lyrics fell out and fluttered to the floor. 

_Are you brave?_

He unfolded the paper completely and scanned the words. He loved this song. 

There was a microphone at the back of the Strand, always on and waiting for someone to read something to the store. Mostly, it went unused – New Yorkers didn’t want to be bothered or bother other people. There were clubs for things like that. 

But here he was, walking up to the microphone with a sheet of paper and a death wish. He wondered if he’d get booed off the…well, it wasn’t a stage exactly. 

He tapped the microphone and leaned into it. 

“Uh, hello,” he said over the feedback. “Sorry to interrupt your browsing but uh…I’ve been asked to do a dramatic reading.” 

The old woman he’d passed a few times stared at him curiously. He felt a surge of fear that the notebook had been left by her – but then she turned and walked away. 

“Um, okay,” he said and held up the lyrics. “And my apologies to Joni Mitchell.” 

The silence that answered him set a deep fear in his bones. 

“It’s coming on Christmas,” he said, and his voice even sounded shaky. “They’re cutting down trees. They’re putting up reindeer and singing songs of joy and peace, oh, I wish I had a river, I could skate away on.” 

He loved this song, but it always made his heart ache in a way he didn’t like to think about too much. He swallowed past it. He wondered if Clue Boy was out there, listening to make sure he did the dare to his specifications. How else would he know? 

“I’m so hard to handle, I’m selfish and sad. Gone and lost the best baby that I ever had, oh I wish I had river I could skate away on. It’s coming on Christmas –”

And then the microphone cut out. 

“Hey!” he turned around and Antonio was holding the end of the cord. “Plug it back in, I didn’t finish –”

“I’m putting you out of your misery,” Antonio said. “Besides you got what you needed. The last two words. You just said them.” 

_Are you going to be lonely on Christmas?_


	2. Chapter 2

“Who is he?” Johnny asked, holding the red notebook and Joni Mitchell lyrics tight in his fist. Antonio, who he followed doggedly back to his station at the Information Desk, rolled his eyes. 

“Even if I could tell you, I wouldn’t,” he said snidely, leaning against the side of the desk. He nodded down at the notebook. “You have to put that back so someone else can play.” 

Johnny furrowed his brow. Put it back? No way was he putting it back. No, he had to write something back to Clue Boy. Below his deciphered message was another paragraph, written in the same handwriting: 

_So here we are. What happens next is up to you. Leave a message telling me how this time of year makes you feel. If I like your answer, you just might hear from me._

_If you’re not scared._

What did Antonio expect? That he would just put the notebook back so some other schmuck could take his shot? No way, not happening. This was Johnny’s notebook now, and he was going to say the right thing.

He winked at Antonio and backed away from the Information Desk before turning on his heel and striding outside, back into the cold. 

“Hey, hey I said leave it!” 

I’m not scared, Clue Boy, Johnny thought. I’m hooked. 

An annoying train ride took him to his best friend Bobby’s family-owned pizza joint, Two Boots. By the time Johnny jogged up the subway steps half an hour later, he had searched every page of the notebook for some hint as to Clue Boy’s identity and found nothing at all except that the first page of the notebook had been torn out, and he had spent the last fifteen minutes face deep in some guy’s Christmas tree, so now he was shaking pine needles out of his coat every ten seconds. 

Bobby was behind the counter when he walked in, red Cobra shirt just barely faded from use. 

“Dude, you’re going to Sweden and you didn’t tell me?” he asked. He gave Johnny a stern look over the pizza he was cutting. 

“What? How did –” Johnny asked, before he remembered: Barbara. “Oh, Barb.” 

“Yeah, she texted and said you were acting weird. Like, weird-weird, even for you.” He folded the pizza box closed and slid it over to the delivery side and pulled out another one. Johnny watched his methodical work, muscle memory more than anything else. 

“She say anything…else?” he asked. 

Bobby dropped the pizza cutter and ducked under the counter to put his hands on Johnny’s shoulders. He looked him in the eye, mouth serious. Johnny almost laughed – this is exactly what he didn’t want to happen. Despite knowing what Bobby was going to say, without a doubt in his mind, he was still nervous. Still scared. He imagined he’d feel that way every time.

“Just so you know…I’m a total ally,” Bobby said. 

“Great, thanks, Bobby,” Johnny said, ducking to hide his flushed neck. “And I’m not going to Sweden, I’m just trying to avoid seeing anyone over the break.” 

“What, even me?” Bobby asked, pouting before he ducked back under the counter to keep cutting. 

“No, man,” Johnny said sincerely. “I need you for the pizza.” 

“Thanks,” Bobby said flatly. 

Johnny glanced down at the notebook again. 

_Leave a message telling me how this time of year makes you feel._

“So what’s the Brown clan doing for Christmas?” he asked. 

Bobby lit up. “Oh, it’s gonna be _sick._ So, you know how my aunt works for the Food Network? She’s going to bring over all the food that was too weird-looking to make it on TV.” 

“Gross,” Johnny joked. “You have to tell me when you open your presents. I helped your mom pick yours out.” 

Bobby squinted at him, suspicious. “What is it? Gimme a hint, gimme a hint!” 

“You really wanna know?” Johnny asked. 

Bobby nodded, practically bouncing on his feet. 

“Okay, you know that Cobra mech GI Joe thing that you wanted?” Johnny asked. 

“Yeah!” 

“It’s not that.” 

Bobby rolled his eyes. “You suck.” He folded up the pizza he was cutting and walked it to the counter, for Johnny to take. His eyes landed on the red notebook, halfway tucked under Johnny’s arm. “What’s this? You have a diary now?” 

He pulled it out from under Johnny’s arm and held it aloft, just barely opening the first page.

“No, I found it at the Strand,” Johnny said, watching Bobby look up from the page without reading anything. “You don’t recognize that handwriting, do you?” 

Bobby looked down at the page more completely. “That’s definitely a boy’s handwriting.” 

“But you don’t recognize it?” 

“Nope, why?” 

Johnny took the notebook back and looked at it again, curiosity piqued. “I’m just trying to rule out suspects. ‘Cause it had these clues, like a treasure hunt, and I’m wondering about the guy who wrote it.” 

“Oooh, you like him!” Bobby leaned over the counter to get a better look at the notebook. 

“Bobby, we aren’t in third grade, you don’t have to say _‘ooh, you like him’_!” 

“But you do, though,” Bobby pointed out. 

“I don’t even know him.” 

“Which makes it even weirder that you like him!” Bobby said. “I mean, I haven’t heard you talk about anyone since…” he trailed off, big eyes avoiding Johnny’s like he was afraid of what he would say.

“You can say her name, Bobby, she isn’t Voldemort,” Johnny laughed. 

“Actually, you’re supposed to say Voldemort’s name,” Bobby corrected. “It takes away his power.” 

Johnny rolled his eyes. “Look, I don’t even know if I want to meet this guy, I just want to figure out who he is.” And what he looked like, and what kind of guy left scavenger hunt clues in a notebook in the Salinger section of the Strand, but that was just extra. Was he some hipster that Johnny would loathe the moment they locked eyes? Was he some introverted loner? Did he have the same rabid love of books that Johnny did? 

“I got it,” Bobby said, yanking Johnny roughly out of his reverie. “We set up a sting operation.” 

“A what?” 

“You leave him a message and tell him to order a pizza from Two Boots. Then, when he places the order, boom, we have his name!”

“I will…consider that,” Johnny said, knowing that he probably wouldn’t do it. Wasn’t part of this game the mystery? Wouldn’t a sting operation be some violation of a rule that Clue Boy had created? He walked over to the video section and pulled a film from the stack. _Amelie._

“I’m gonna get this,” he said, sliding it over to rest on top of the pizza box. 

Bobby surveyed it. “What is that about?” 

“It’s a French movie,” Johnny answered evasively, pulling the movie and pizza over the counter.

***

Twenty minutes later, Johnny stepped through the elevator and entered into a wall of noise. _Shit_ , the alarm. He scrambled to the keypad by the elevator, pushing a button on the side to light the buttons up. What was Sid’s passcode last time? He punched it in, swearing under his breath when nothing happened. 

He fished his phone out of his pocket and lifted it to his ear. Sid answered on the second ring. 

“Hey, Sid, did you – did you change the code to the alarm?” he asked. 

“The alarm? At my place?” 

“Yeah – yeah, at your place,” Johnny grimaced. He was supposed to be at his mother’s, according to Sid, and at Sid’s according to his mother. “I just…needed a quiet place to get away.” 

“Yeah, yeah, or to bring a girl, right?” 

Johnny looked down at the red notebook, sprawled half-open on the floor where he’d dropped it when the alarm went off. 

“Sure, yeah, or to bring a girl.” 

Sid chuckled flatly on the other end. Johnny never knew what to do with that. It was either a sarcastic laugh or a fake one, but there was never a way to know for sure. 

“The code is 9614,” he said. “You can crash there if you need it, but stay out of the booze.” 

“Got it, thanks.” 

As penance for having to call Sid at all, Johnny poured himself a healthy dose of brandy and sat down to watch _Amelie._ Sitting here, in his step-father’s empty apartment was his Christmas gift to himself. Solitude. Silence. He craved it more than anything. 

_Amelie_ kept his attention for a while. There was something about the red notebook, about the clues, about Clue Boy in particular that reminded him of this movie. Usually, he enjoyed spending Christmas watching depressing movies, but…this time he wanted something different. 

He ate his pizza and watched the movie listlessly, his optimism waning as he realized the improbability of this particular notebook correspondence ending as happily as the movie did. Could he expect to finish this journey curled up beside Clue Boy in bed, knowing that they both completely understood each other? 

The idea almost made him want to go get a depressing movie to cleanse his palate. 

He pulled out the notebook and flipped it open. 

He sat there, with his pen hovering over the page, and thought about Ali, which was exactly what he promised himself he wouldn’t do. They were coming up on a year since their break-up, and if Johnny were honest with himself, which he could be now that he had finished his glass of brandy, he still missed her. He missed her laugh, her sarcastic eyeroll when he said something particularly pretentious. He missed…her presence. 

But her father had gotten a job in South America, and that was that. 

He pressed the tip of the pen into the page and watched the ink bleed before he started writing. 

_You asked me how this time of year makes me feel. I suspect you’re a kindred spirit, so I know you’ll understand when I say, it’s the most detestable time of the year._

He smiled as he wrote. Sure, he wasn’t being particularly kind to the spirit of Christmas, but if Clue Boy liked River, the saddest Christmas song ever written, surely he understood. He would finish this and put the notebook back in the Strand tomorrow morning. 

The clues he left would instruct Clue Boy to leave the notebook on one of the shelves in the video section at Two Boots. There Bobby could keep an eye out for him. 

It seemed he would get the sting operation after all.

***

_The day before._

Daniel’s Christmas was going to hell. Not only was his mother flying to California for some “warm Christmas” idea she’d gotten from watching too much HGTV, his uncle Louie was going down to Florida to see some girl he met on the Internet. 

So his favorite holiday, which was supposed to be full of cookies and treats, gifts and carols, was going to be empty and sad this year. 

He had no one to keep him company but Jessica, who reminded him often that she loved him, but he wasn’t her brother. So while he could enjoy her company, it wouldn’t be the same.

He watched his mother roll her suitcase to the cab, and waved when she turned around and caught him watching. He let the cab roll on down the street, trying to ignore the sadness that threatened to weigh him down. This was Christmas, dammit, he wasn’t going to allow something silly like petty geography ruin it. 

“Do you want to go to Dyker Heights and see the lights with me?” Daniel asked. Jessica, who was lounging on the couch, her patterned, socked feet crossed at the ankle, turned to see him. “Keep the tradition alive?” 

Jessica furrowed her brows. Of course she wouldn’t know that was tradition, Daniel thought. This was her first year here, for a LaRusso Christmas. Except, it wouldn’t be a LaRusso Christmas. 

“I actually just invited a girl over, so…” she grinned at him, “can you go somewhere?” 

He didn’t need to be told twice.

He walked a block before he pulled out his phone and posted a notice. _Calling all Christmas carolers!_ He got hits almost instantly, people he knew from the neighborhood, from the bodega down the street, people he knew from proximity. It didn’t bother him that all of those people were adults – he was used to spending time with adults, anyway. Some of his favorite people were his mother, his uncle Louie, and Mr. Miyagi. 

He was so excited by his planned caroling that he ran up the stairs to his apartment only an hour and a half after he left, ready to beg Jessica to join him. 

“I formed my own caroling troupe –!”

All he saw was the bare skin of a girl’s back before Jessica shouted, “Daniel, _get out_!” 

He obeyed without thinking, catching sight of a pretty girl with long dark hair before the door shut completely. 

***

Jessica found him twenty minutes later, hair frizzy and pulled back in a bun, embarrassment lining her face. Daniel imagined he must look the same way. She nudged his bedroom door open and grimaced. 

“Can we try that again?” she asked tentatively. She waited until Daniel gave her a wan smile. “How was your day?” Daniel closed the red notebook he had open on his lap and smiled back.

“I formed my own caroling troupe!” Daniel said, the exact same tone as the first time he said it. “It’s mostly…people from around the neighborhood, and –”

“Let me guess, adults?” 

“They’re easier to talk to!” Daniel protested. “They read actual books. They don’t bully me.” He grinned. “They drink a lot.” 

“I’m sorry this Christmas sucks,” Jessica said, sitting gingerly on the edge of his bed. “With your mom in California –”

“It doesn’t suck,” Daniel said, but the words sounded fake to his ears. “It’s fine, I am fine –”

“You know, if you pretend to be a Macy’s Santa, one day you will snap and kill everyone.” 

“Jess –”

“You don’t have to pretend to be jolly,” Jessica said seriously, dropping a hand to his knee. 

“It’s just…everyone has someone for Christmas except me,” Daniel said wistfully. “Speaking of which…who is she?” he jutted his chin toward Jessica’s bedroom. 

“Her name is Julie,” Jessica said, a grin taking over her face. “I think I really like her.” At Daniel’s face, she sighed. “You will find someone too. You’re amazing.” 

“Yeah, I’m not good at meeting guys, or talking to them,” Daniel said, picking at his bedspread. 

Jessica looked down at the red notebook. “Hey, I remember you writing in these!” 

“Yeah, Mr. Miyagi gave them to me,” Daniel said softly. “Whenever I feel things I can’t say out loud, I put them in the notebook.” 

Jessica stared down at the notebook. “Oh my god, I have an idea.” 

The pretty brunette poked her head in the door, wrapped in nothing but a blanket. Daniel averted his eyes politely. “What are we talking about?” 

***

“How would you describe him?” Daniel asked Antonio, who glared at him through the stacks of books. 

“Snarly.” 

“Snarly?” Daniel repeated, confused. He followed Antonio to the next shelf, ready to badger him for more. 

“And annoyingly pedantic. He did commit to the Joni, though,” he said, smiling when he saw that Daniel was starting to smile. 

“Did he leave a message?” he asked, tapping his fingers together until Antonio reached into the cart and pulled out the red notebook, passing it over.

“He left instructions.” 

Daniel waited until he was on the sidewalk outside the Strand before he opened the notebook. It was a test of his patience, but he also didn’t want Antonio to watch him read the message. 

_Do I dare? Not for just anyone, but apparently, Clue Boy, I dare for you._

Daniel bit his lip and turned the page.

_I admire your words, I salute your taste in music. I’m not sure how I feel about your fiendish bent towards public spectacle, but I have to confess, you intrigue me. You asked me how this time of year makes me feel. I expect you’re a kindred spirit, so I know you’ll understand when I say…_

Daniel’s grin slid clean off his face.

***

He managed to shove open Jessica’s bedroom door to naked women again – this time he ignored Jessica’s protest and kept his eyes on the notebook. 

“He hates Christmas,” he said. 

“Daniel!” Jessica shouted. 

Julie peeked out from under the blankets, excited. “You got a bite? What does it say?” 

“It’s the most detestable time of year,” Daniel read angrily. “The forced cheer, the frenzied crowds.” 

“Wow, he really misread you,” Jessica said flatly.

“He left his own clues,” Daniel said, motioning to the notebook. “He wants me to follow them.” 

“Great,” Jessica replied, motioning toward the door. “Tell us how it goes.” 

“I’m not doing it,” Daniel protested. “We obviously have nothing in common.” 

“Daniel, I love you, I would never make you do something you don’t want to do.” 

Daniel waited for a moment before he added, “but?” 

“What?” Jessica asked. “No but. Either you feel it or you don’t. Put the notebook back on the shelf and try again.” 

He left the notebook on his desk for a few hours before he could bring himself to look at it again. Jessica was right – if he didn’t feel it, he didn’t have to force it. He ran his eyes over the clues again, over the handwriting. Whoever he was, he did find all of Daniel’s clues. So at least they had books in common.

With a sigh, he opened the notebook again. 

_The forced cheer, the frenzied crowds, the feeling that you’re expected to be joyful, even when you’re not. Because, when you’re alone on Christmas, it’s somehow worse than the rest of the year._

Daniel sat back on his bed. Well, he could relate to that, couldn’t he? More than he’d like to admit. He sighed. 

_If you know what I mean, turn the page._

He turned the page and just barely caught a coupon for a pizza parlor before it fell to the floor. He turned it over in his hand. Two Boots. He checked the address. He’d never been there – it was easily three blocks out of the typical circle he stayed in. 

_Go to the address on the menu. And leave the notebook next to the most depressing Christmas movie you can find._

Daniel scanned the stacks and found _Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer_. He set the notebook gingerly beside it and cast one final look back at the counter, where a boy was taking orders with a confidence he wished he had. 

“We call it St. Nick in honor of Nicolas Cage,” the boy said. Daniel laughed and turned to leave. 

He was almost to the edge of the block when someone caught him around the shoulder. Daniel whirled around, and caught sight of the pizza boy. 

“You’re Notebook Boy!” 

_Shit._


	3. Chapter 3

His name was Bobby Brown, and apparently, Notebook Boy had given him orders to keep an eye out for Daniel when he returned the notebook? Daniel was momentarily impressed, mostly he was worried. Bobby had gotten a good look at him, after all. He would probably tell Notebook Boy what he looked like and who he was. What if Daniel wasn’t good enough? What if he wasn’t good-looking enough, or cool enough? 

“You can’t tell him you saw me,” he said when Bobby slid a slice of pizza over the table to him.

“Why?” 

“Because I don’t want him to know who I am.” _Because if he knows who I am, he might stop writing._

Bobby frowned and dropped his chin to his palm. “But don’t you want to meet him?” he asked. 

“No!” Daniel blurted before he could censor himself. Bobby raised his eyebrows. “Not yet. I don’t know.” He nudged the notebook, where it was sitting between them. “I want to get to know him, but that’s easier to do in there.” 

Bobby looked down at the notebook. “Weren’t you supposed to put this next to a depressing Christmas movie?” Daniel shrugged and nodded. “So why _Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer_?” 

“Reindeer are herbivores who wouldn’t hurt anyone, but that wouldn’t stop the wildlife service from hunting the poor guy down,” Daniel pointed out. “Even though it was probably Grandma’s fault for getting in the way.” 

“That is depressing,” Bobby breathed, and Daniel chuckled. 

“Right?” He pursed his lips. “So…your friend. What’s he like?” 

Bobby laughed. “I don’t think he’d want me to answer that.” 

“Is he snarly?” 

Bobby paused. “The word my mom used is ‘ _finicky_.’” Daniel grimaced. “Look, he’s complicated. He’s got a lot of walls. But once he lets you in, he’s the most loyal friend you could have. Trust me.” 

Now that was more like it. Daniel smiled, relieved. “Can I? Trust you?” 

Bobby sighed. “Well, you did come during the lunch rush. It gets super busy. Maybe I…missed you.” 

“You’d do that for me?” 

“And for him.” 

“Why?” Daniel asked. 

Bobby looked out the window and back. “Because you’re not Ali.” 

Whatever that meant. 

***

Johnny stared at the red notebook in his hands. “How did you miss him?” 

Bobby rolled his eyes. “It was the lunch rush!” 

“What about the security cameras?” 

Bobby laughed. “What security cameras?”

“You said this was a sting operation!” Johnny exclaimed. 

“Yeah, but this is also a pizza parlor,” Bobby pointed out, ducking under the counter to get to the other side. “Uhh…he left you a message.”

“What?” Johnny fumbled with the notebook, turning the pages swiftly in his hands.

_Nice try. You sent me into a trap._

Johnny looked up from the notebook in alarm. “Dude, what? How could he possibly know that?” 

Bobby pointed back down at the notebook. “It gets worse.” 

Johnny looked back down at the page. 

_I’m flattered, Mystery Boy, but I’m not so easy to catch. If you want to know more about me, you’ll have to do it through this notebook. And if you want my name? You’ll have to earn it. With a dare._

He was sending him into Macy’s a week out from Christmas? He was a goddamn sadist. He was a torturing madman. He was crazy. And Johnny thought all of those things while staring up at the huge Macy’s sign on 52nd, knowing that he was going to go in anyway. 

If he didn’t, he wouldn’t learn anything else about Clue Boy. And as much as he didn’t want to walk through the perfume department, or stand in line with a bunch of bratty kids, he really wanted to know his name. 

“Maybe this is a bad idea,” Bobby said from his right side. “I mean, you don’t even know this guy. He could be totally different than what you think.” 

“No, that’s the thing, Bobby, I _do_ know him,” Johnny said, already steeling himself for the horrors that awaited him inside Macy’s. “When I read his words, it’s like I can hear his voice. He’s sarcastic, sophisticated, sadistic.” 

“Sadistic?” Bobby snorted.

“He’s sending me into a department store right before Christmas. Clearly, his sadism knows no bounds.” 

The inside was just as vomit-inducing as he thought it would be. Santa’s Village was a forest of fake trees (all for sale, of course, for $599.99 and up), and a plush red carpet full to bursting with exhausted parents and wired, sticky children full of cookies and energy that would fade from their tiny bodies on December 26th. 

And right in the middle, a sign that said: “no children over 12 past this point.” 

“Well,” Johnny muttered, “nothing a little Christmas lie can’t fix.” 

“Be nice to Santa,” Bobby called after him from the safe side of the barrier. 

“Notebook Boy wants me to suffer,” Johnny said with a laugh. 

Bobby rolled his eyes. “Or he wants you to feel the Christmas spirit.” 

“Yeah, I think I know him a little bit better than you do, Bobby.” 

Bobby scoffed and stepped away.

_Your mission, if you’re brave enough to accept it: I dare you to ask Santa for my name. If you’ve been a good boy this year, you’ve got nothing to worry about. But if you want to get past the Santa guard, you might have to get naughty._

Santa guard?

He made it about five steps before a middle-aged man in an elf costume stopped him. He was short, shorter than Johnny, with about three days worth of five o’clock shadow on his jaw, and a pair of beady little eyes that meant business. 

“No children over twelve.” 

“I’m a tall eleven,” Johnny said with a smile, trying to step past him. The elf blocked his way, hands on his candy caned hips. 

“No children over twelve.” 

“Well, I bet the _New York Times_ would love to know that you made it a store policy to discriminate against teenagers.” 

“I’m calling security,” the man literally pulled a walkie-talkie out of his little stocking. 

“No, no, no,” Johnny said hurriedly, “you don’t have to –”

“Don’t I know you?” Bobby’s voice was a godsend, right behind him. The elf turned to him, disgruntled.

“Not unless you’ve been to the North Pole,” the elf said flatly, hand still on the walkie-talkie.

“I swear I’ve seen you before,” Bobby insisted. “You – you’re an actor.” The elf looked momentarily mollified, and Johnny rolled his eyes. Of course that little shit was an actor. “I swear, I remember you from…”

“ _Law and Order_?” 

“Right, yes, _Law and Order_ ,” Bobby said. “You were the murdere –”

“Corpse –”

“The murdered corpse,” Bobby faltered, taking the elf by the shoulders, and jerking his head toward Santa. “Right, that performance was so believable. I really thought you were dead!” 

Johnny gave him a salute and crept away and then sprinted to the front of the line, where a little girl was walking up to Santa’s throne, and holy shit, were they putting him on a throne now, like he was some weird Christmas monarch? 

Not the time, Johnny. 

“Whoa, whoa, sorry, this is an emergency,” he said to the little girl, cutting in line, ignoring the filthy look her mother threw at him.

“Ho, ho, ho, we got a big boy!” Santa said with a laugh. 

Gross. 

_Show him the notebook to collect your reward._

“No, no, I’m not here for…that,” he said, pulling the notebook out of his pocket. “I was sent by –”

“Ahh,” Santa said. “Our mutual friend.”

“Yes,” Johnny said, relieved. “Yes, do you have something for me?” 

“Of course! Right up here,” Santa said, pointing to his hat. 

“Great,” Johnny glanced back at Bobby, who was still talking to the elf. 

“Come, sit on my lap first,” Santa said. 

Absolutely not. “Um, I’m kind of in a rush –”

“Come on, if you want a present from Santa, you gotta sit on his lap,” Santa was joking with him now, or teasing him, but the last thing Johnny wanted was to sit on a weirdo’s lap with children watching. 

“Will you hurry up? There are children waiting!” The girl’s mother had finally found her voice.

“Fine,” he grumbled, and stepped up to the stupid throne and sat on Santa’s knee, trying to ignore how idiotic it felt. “Want my Christmas list?” 

Santa grabbed him tight around the waist. “I want to give you a warning, punk. Our mutual friend happens to be very important to me, and I don’t want him dating some snarky teenage smartass.”

“Ow,” Johnny muttered. “Just give me the hat!” 

“Promise me you won’t hurt him.” 

“ _You_ are hurting _me_!” 

In the end, he had to snatch the hat from Santa’s head and make a break for it, tripping through the fake trees and their extension cords like he was really running for his life. It was the security guard that tackled him and brought him down in the fake snow, but it was the elf who marched him to the door and banned him from Santa Land for life. 

“We don’t have that authority,” the security guard assured him. “But you should be ashamed of yourself.” 

Right, as if he cared. He had the hat tucked under his arm with Notebook Boy’s name on it. He waited for them to go back inside and rifled through it, hands scraping the material and finding…nothing. 

“No, no, no, come on, I did everything you –” his fingers peeled back the material of the hat and found a name stitched into the material in gold. 

Daniel. 

_So Mystery Boy, do you feel the holiday spirit?_

“You’re actually smiling,” Bobby said incredulously, clutching a photo in his hands. “It’s a Christmas miracle.”

“Well,” Johnny said, trying to wipe the grin off his face. “I did get a present from Santa.” 

“You had fun,” Bobby prodded.

“If you tell anyone, I will deny it,” Johnny said, holding the hat tightly to him. 

“I got a present too,” Bobby said, holding up the photo. It was a headshot of the elf, outside of his elf costume.

“Is that an autographed headshot?” 

“Yeah, that elf is really cool, he’s like a celebrity,” Bobby said with a laugh. 

Johnny looked down at the hat again. “His name is Daniel.” 

“I like that name,” Bobby said.

“Yeah, me too,” Johnny said, fingers tracing over the letters. “Hey, can you do me one more favor? I mean, I’d do it myself but I can’t go back in there. Literally, like ever.” 

“Yeah?” 

***

Nighttime found Daniel sitting outside his apartment, listening to the sounds of the neighborhood. It was cold, but he liked being part of the city, contributing to its collective breath, to its beating heart. He could only do that down here, in the guts of it. 

“Ho, ho, ho!” 

He leaned forward and spotted him, holding his Santa suit over his shoulder. Excitement gripped him. 

“Uncle Sal!” he exclaimed, jumping to his feet. He gave him a tight hug. The man smelled like a department store. “Do you have something for me?” 

“Yeah,” he grumbled, digging in his pocket. “He showed up at the end of my shift, with a plate of milk and cookies.” He passed the notebook over. “I don’t like that boy, Daniel. I don’t think your Uncle Louie would either.” 

“Well, Uncle Louie is in Florida,” he pointed out. 

“I’m just looking out for you,” Sal replied. “Merry Christmas, kid.” 

“Merry Christmas, Uncle Sal.” 

Upstairs, Daniel opened the red notebook. 

_Dear Daniel,_

_You win. If we’re gonna do this, then I agree to follow your rules. No sting operation. No last names. No social media stalking. No pressure to meet. Personal questions are fair game, but they have to be earned with a dare._

_Well. I did your dare. So, tell me, Daniel, what do you want for Christmas?_

Daniel reached over to his phone and cranked up “Fairytale of New York,” leaning back on his bed to read the notebook again. 

Across town, Johnny turned on the radio, heard the same song, and turned it off again. After a moment’s consideration, he leaned over and turned it back on, the Santa hat clutched in his hands. He pulled the lining down and ran his fingers over the letters of Daniel’s name.


	4. Chapter 4

_What do I want for Christmas? I want to get to know you, Notebook Boy. Take me somewhere special, someplace in the city that feels like you._

It was painfully early in the morning, so early that the city felt like it hadn’t quite filled out its outline yet, like the colors were still developing. But, Notebook Boy sent him here, so here Daniel was.

_The most me isn’t a place, Daniel, it’s a time. Be inside Grand Central Terminal before the first train arrives. I know it’s early, but I promise…it’s worth it._

The inside of Grand Central was gold – in every direction. The walls, and the yellow lights that beamed upward on them, were gold, the gilded ceiling sparkled like a valuable vein of ore. The whole, cavernous place was blessedly empty – with the exception of less than five people lingering on the edges, like a dance that hadn’t begun yet. There was sense of tranquility and quiet that made everything feel like the soft touch of a whisper.

_There are few moments when you can find stillness in the middle of the city, when you can enjoy the heart of New York without the crush of people. Tell me what you see._

Daniel stood in the middle of the empty space and looked, really looked, for that special sparkle that Notebook Boy felt. The arch over the windows, the darkness coming in from the windows that sold the lightness of the inside. He looked straight up, to the constellations on the ceiling. It’s still a night full of stars. The world was big and small in the same breath.

***

Johnny stood in that same terminal several hours later, waiting for the suit in front of him to look up from his phone and realize one of the service stations was open and motioning for him to move forward. Still, the man remained painfully glued to the out-of-date iPhone in front of him. 

“Hey, it’s your turn.” Nothing. “Dude, look up.” 

The guy looked back at him before he looked up, and trotted off toward the waving woman. With a long-suffering sigh, Johnny stepped up to the terminal on the end, the inside stuffed full of tinsel and lights and Christmas cheer. The man behind the counter slid the notebook over without complaint.

_Now, I know you like stillness, but you don’t have to get up so early to find it. You just need a lesson from my cousin in Central Park. He’s a Zen master. He can tune out any kind of noise._

Daniel’s cousin was a painted statue in Central goddamn Park, which would have been funny and witty if the rest of the entry didn’t say:

_If you can last ten minutes doing what he does, leave the notebook and your next dare with him, and our game can continue._

_And one more thing: It’s time I knew your name. Fair is fair._

***

_Dear Daniel,_

_I value fairness, so I’ll give you my name. It’s not like it’s so uncommon it’ll give anything away. My name is Johnny._

Johnny, huh? Daniel tried to picture him, snarly and sarcastic and pessimistic Johnny Something, but came up short. He was pretty sure he didn’t want to project any particular face onto him anyway, especially if they decided to meet later. 

Which they probably wouldn’t, but still. 

Johnny’s next dare took him to a pretzel stand, where Daniel was forced to eat a pretzel covered in so much salt he felt his heart seizing up just looking at it. He ate all of it, grimacing all the while, and drank an entire bottle of water afterward. 

***

Daniel’s next dare took Johnny to a café with a huge tree in the corner, and his order was a plate full of cannoli. Surprisingly Italian.

_It’s the sweetest time of the year. So, enjoy some Christmas cannolis and tell me about your best Christmas. I know even you have at least one._

Johnny bit into one of the dozen ( _dozen!_ ) cannoli on the plate and picked up his pen. 

_My best Christmas, I was ten years old. My mother brought me to a little ice cream shop near our apartment and told me that I was going to have a better Christmas this year. I was excited, because I thought that meant more presents or something. But she was telling me that we were moving in with my step-dad, which had to be a good thing. That meant she was happy, right? But she wasn’t happy, she was poor, and my step-dad was an Upper West Sider with lots of money._

_I didn’t realize then what she was signing up for, just to give me a better Christmas. That was the last time I believed in Santa or miracles._

Johnny looked up from his plate and watched a family at another table share ice cream and laugh about nothing. It was Normal Rockwellian in its simplicity, and his chest ached seeing it. He had it plenty with his mom before Sid, but she never thought it was enough. So she suffered with Sid until she managed to shake him loose. 

Christmases had never been the same. 

_But enough about me, Daniel. Misery loves company. Tell me about your worst Christmas. I know even you have at least one._

***

The notebook was waiting on an abandoned table with an empty coffee cup and a plate with cannoli crumbs when Daniel got there. He could almost feel Johnny’s imprint on the space, the heaviness he left behind with the story he left in the notebook. 

_My worst Christmas? Try this one. My mom is in California, my uncle is in Florida. He says he goes there for the oranges, but he’s really visiting his bleach-blonde girlfriend. Don’t get me started. So I’d like to say my worst Christmas is this one._

He finished writing with a flourish and went to close the notebook. Sure, this Christmas had sucked so far, but was it really the worst he’d ever had? Hadn’t the notebook and Johnny made it at least marginally better? 

He reached down and tore out the page. 

_You told me something personal. Something that hurt. So I guess I owe you the same. My worst Christmas was the year of the friendship bracelets in middle school._

Daniel could see it, vivid and unforgiving, before him. He had a pile of those little friendship bracelets that Mr. Miyagi taught him how to make. He got all of the forgotten thread and material from the back of the craft store, all on sale and clearance marked, and made bracelets for all the kids in his grade. 

And most of the kids liked them! It was a dream come true. He didn’t have many friends here, didn’t think many of the kids liked him that much, but the friendship bracelets were supposed to be a symbol of possibilities, of future friendships. 

And then there was Judy Thibaud. Beautiful, curly brown hair, perfect skin, popular to boot, Judy was Daniel’s first real crush. And he made a friendship bracelet especially for her. It was purple and blue, her favorite colors. 

When he gave it to her, she smiled at him, and he felt it, all the way down to his red boots, and he thought that maybe now they could be friends, maybe she would talk to him in the hallway. 

Later, when he was at his locker, grabbing his coat to leave, he saw Judy, at the top of the stairs, with her friends, holding out the friendship bracelet like it smelled bad, with the tips of her fingers. 

“He is so weird,” he heard her say before she dropped it on the floor, her friends all following suit. He waited until she was gone, until the pounding in his chest subsided, before he went to the top of the stairs and collected the little bracelets, tucking them into his pockets. Except there were abandoned bracelets everywhere, and he was late meeting his uncle because he had to pick them all up, he couldn’t just leave them there. 

He saved all the fabric from being abandoned just for them to be discarded again. 

_Until that moment, I honestly thought I would fit in, that I’d always fit in eventually. All I had to do was be me. After that, I started to feel like Alice in Wonderland, like school was full of all these rules that didn’t make sense._

_And yeah, being myself hasn’t won me giant parties full of friends. I don’t really go to parties, or get invited to them. What I do, apparently, is unload embarrassing childhood traumas to a stranger in a notebook. I guess it’s easier to admit this stuff to someone you’ve never met._

_Maybe I’ve scared you off, but, if not, and I hope not, leave your next dare in Central Park, with the patron saint of weirdos._

***

“First I said I wanted to go back in time and beat up the twerp that called him weird,” Johnny said, leaning on his elbow at Two Boots, Bobby folding pizza boxes behind the counter. “And then I realized that made me sound like a Cro-Magnon freak and tore it out.” 

“It is so cute how protective you are,” Bobby batted his eyelashes at him. “Over your paper boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Johnny protested. 

“He’s kind of your boyfriend, though,” Bobby countered.

“No, it’s just a game, Bobby.”

The door dinged and before Bobby could enumerate all the reasons why Daniel was definitely Johnny’s boyfriend, Tommy and Jimmy were at the bulletin board, tearing old flyers off of it. It was like watching a cartoon whirlwind, a cloud with debris flying out of it. 

“Jimmy, Tommy, come on, you’re littering!” Bobby protested. 

“These are all old,” Jimmy pointed out. “I’m making way for the new.” He tacked a flyer on and smacked it for emphasis. 

“The Challah-back Boys?” Johnny read.

“You guys playing a show?” Jimmy and Tommy only grinned at him. “Secret show?” 

“Seventh night of Hanukkah,” Tommy said.

“Uh, you forgot the address,” Bobby said, pointing at the flyer. 

Tommy scoffed. “Jimmy’s beautifully Xeroxed photo of a loaf of challah is a beacon for all the kooks and weirdos who follow the Challah-back Boys,” he said, flinging an arm around Jimmy’s shoulders. 

“This is tonight?” Johnny asked, an idea forming.

“Did I _not_ just say the seventh night of Hanukkah?” Jimmy asked. 

Johnny yanked the flyer off the bulletin board and left behind weak protests and Tommy’s comforting “it’s okay, I have another one.” 

***

Daniel found the notebook under the mushroom at the Alice in Wonderland statue at Central Park.

_Weird is cool, Daniel, and I’m going to prove it. Happy Hanukkah._

Folded in the pages was a flyer for a show by the Challah-back Boys. No address.

“It’s a punk show,” he said to Jessica when he got home. He handed her the flyer. 

“A Jewish punk show?” she asked, incredulous. “Jewcore? I _love_ New York.” 

“I can’t go to this,” Daniel said worriedly. “I’m not allowed out that late! I don’t go to clubs! Or punk shows!” 

“But you could,” Jessica said with a shrug. 

“It starts at two a.m.!” 

“Daniel, please, stop hanging out with Mr. Miyagi and Uncle Louie,” Jessica begged, scooting to the edge of the bed. “Go to the punk show, live your life!” 

“What if I do something stupid and embarrassing and he realizes that I’m not the guy in his head and he stops writing to me?” Jessica glared at him. “I really like him, what if I ruin everything?” 

“Hey, Danny!” Julie leaned against his door frame, leather jacket unzipped to reveal a crop top underneath, even though it was definitely snowing outside. “Baby, let’s grab that comforter of yours and take it to the roof.” 

“You’re sleeping on the roof again?” 

“It’s very cold, but extremely romantic,” Jessica said matter-of-factly. “I’ll be up there in a bit. My not-brother but totally like a brother brother is nervous about clubbing.” 

“What’s wrong with clubbing?” Julie asked, concern creasing her pretty face. 

“I’ve just never been,” Daniel shrugged. 

“Okay,” Julie said like the sentence didn’t make sense to her. “Let me help. I know everything about clubbing. Let’s start with the wardrobe.” 

“I definitely don’t have clubbing-worthy clothes,” Daniel pointed out. 

Julie stared at the rack of his clothes she could see from where she sat. She clicked her tongue in a way even Daniel knew was disapproving. She stood up and flicked through the pile, eyes critical. She pulled out a pair of purple pants that Daniel hadn’t worn in years, and a black belt. Then she grabbed a sweatshirt off the rack and put it aside.

“Here, you’ll wear this,” she said, handing Daniel the pants and belt. 

“And the sweatshirt?” Daniel asked. It was an odd choice, but Julie said she was going to help. 

“What?” Julie asked. “Oh, no, sweetie. Here, you’re wearing this.” 

She shed her leather jacket and her crop top, tossing both items over to Daniel and put his sweatshirt on herself, stuffing her hands into the too-big pockets. 

“I can’t wear your clothes,” Daniel pointed out. 

“Yes, you can,” Julie said, putting her sweatshirt-covered hands on either side of his face. “Because you are going to look fabulous in them. Now take a nap so you can get up on time to go clubbing!” 

Daniel spent another half hour staring at the clothes before he took the advice and settled into his bed to go to sleep. He set an alarm for 1 a.m. 

He woke, panting, to the sound of the alarm, fresh off the heels of a nightmare where Johnny held a red notebook and laughed at him. _Go play board games with Mr. Miyagi, Daniel, you don’t belong here._

Here, while he was awake, it was almost like he could hear his voice again. 

_Tonight is going to change your life. Come on. Trust me._

He got out of a cab in the Lower East Side, outside a Jewish deli with a loaf of challah in the window. He knew how these secret shows worked – Julie left him written instructions on the kitchen table before she and Jessica went to the roof. 

He found the clue, now he just had to find the door. The deli was closed, and the alley was blocked, but there was a door to a basement. He reached for the door when the deli door opened and a drag queen stepped out, tall and towering and beautiful in a blue sequined dress.

“I’m looking for a club,” he said, feeling stupid as he said it. But the drag queen looked him up and down, from the bare midriff down to his red boots, and smirked appreciatively. Maybe that was a good sign. 

“What’s your drag, _bubela_?” she asked.

“What?” 

“What’s bringing you down this fine evening?” 

“Does something have to be bringing me down?” Daniel asked. 

“It does if you want to get inside,” she said flatly.

“It’s Christmas and my mom is gone,” Daniel said with a shrug. 

“Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry,” a manicured hand landed on Daniel’s shoulder comfortingly. “When did she pass?” 

“What? No, she’s just in California.” 

“Boy, get out of here.” 

“No, no, no, wait, I have to get in there,” Daniel insisted, chasing after her. How was she walking in the snow with those heels? He was astounded, and impressed. 

“Then give me a real drag,” she said, leaning on the railing. “I need some real –”

“I’ve never been kissed!” Daniel exclaimed, loud enough that he heard it echo in the neighborhood. He winced at the sound. “Okay?” 

“Goodness, honey, that is a drag,” she said. “Get in there and rectify your situation, stat.” She yanked the door open, music leaking out onto the street, and said, “Down the rabbit hole.” 

Daniel stared at her for a moment before he stepped inside. First, he saw nothing but a dirty hallway, rusted pipes in the wall. Then the hallway was opening up, and there was a stage, with a dance floor, and people – he clipped another drag queen in the shoulder. 

“Hey, watch it!” she shouted at him. 

He apologized and stepped away, turning around and running almost face-first into a pair of girls who dumped a plastic cup of beer all on his face. 

“Sorry,” he said to them, even though they were talking loudly in his face about something he couldn’t understand. They were drunk, he realized belatedly. Incredibly drunk. 

The music was too loud, the people were too loud, everything was loud – Daniel shoved past the line at the bathroom just as someone was coming out and locked himself in. He listened, for a moment, to the protests outside the door, the hammering knocks. And then he busied himself wiping the beer off his face, trying to see his reflection in the mirror that had writing all over it. 

The eyeliner that Jessica had suggested was smeared already, but he left it alone, choosing instead to dab the beer off his face and the shirt Julie loaned him. When he was done here, he was going to walk back through that dance floor and leave. This wasn’t his scene – and if this was Johnny’s scene, maybe they weren’t a good match after all. 

He looked in the mirror again, a tear sliding out of his eye without his permission, borne out of frustration and fear, and caught sight of familiar handwriting. 

_“Get back out there, Daniel,”_ it said in blue marker, with a little smiley face next to it. 

Daniel dug a marker out from a ragged box beneath the sink and added, _“But I’m scared,”_ beside it. 

He would go back out there and try again, if only for Johnny. Especially because he clearly knew Daniel well enough to know he would run to the bathroom, and that he would be afraid. That was understanding, kinship. He pushed the door open and walked to the edge of the dance floor. Everyone was so carefree, dancing with their eyes closed, shoving each other back and forth. 

He wanted to be one of them.

“Sweetie, you are not gonna be kissed on the sidelines,” the same drag queen from before was back. “Come on,” she said, taking one of Daniel’s hands and yanking him through the crowd. 

She left him in the middle of the dance floor, where people immediately moved away from him, like he had some amazing dance moves planned. He was going to disappoint them. But he allowed himself to be moved by the music, even though he felt kind of ridiculous. And then a woman with shredded pants took his hand and started dancing with him, and he felt less ridiculous. 

Somehow, everything spiraled into a wall of sound and color, and he was dancing and pushing and shoving with everyone else, and people were cheering for him, if that was even possible. The band on the stage pointed at him with an excited grin and Daniel felt important. Seen. The music had an accordion and strings and it was loud and yelly and he loved it.

Maybe Johnny was right. Maybe clubbing was fun. 

Someone lifted him off the ground and then the drag queen was back, with a sequined crown in her hand. “He’s the queen!” she declared, hooking the crown into his hair. 

He turned around and there was his past, staring at him like she couldn’t believe he was there. 

“Daniel?” 

“Oh my god,” he muttered, much too quietly for anyone to hear. 

“It’s Judy,” she said. “Judy Thibaud.” 

The world slowed to a stop. Suddenly, Daniel realized he was cold. 

“I knew it was you,” she said, and she was smiling, but Daniel couldn’t smile back at her. “Man it is so random seeing you here. Hey, dope moves.” 

“You – you saw all that?” Daniel felt the wild urge to yank the crown from his head, to wipe away the eyeliner. But it was too late now. Judy had seen everything.

“Did you bring a notebook to a club?” Judy asked, pointing at the little bag Daniel had slung over his shoulder, with the notebook sticking out. He was supposed to leave it behind for Johnny after the show. “You are _so weird_.” 

He could hear it all over again. 

_He is so weird._

He didn’t really remember what happened after that. He must have walked away, or ran away. The next thing he knew, he was tripping up the top step coming out of the basement and landing in dirty melted snow. His boot slipped off his foot but he didn’t stop – he could hear Judy coming after him, calling his name. 

He slipped into a cab and didn’t cry until the door slammed after him.

_I failed you, Johnny. I failed you, and I failed Hanukkah. I didn’t stand up to my oppressor._

He felt the bag against his hip and another pang of sadness washed over him. He forgot to leave the notebook behind. How was Johnny supposed to find him now? He wasn’t, that’s how.

And maybe he shouldn’t. Because he was the loser, at least that’s how he felt now. He left his one remaining red boot behind on the front step to dry when he got home, still sniffling from his undignified cry in the cab. 

And then he realized that the front door was open. 

He crept inside, ears intent, listening for any signs of movement. He heard footsteps in the bedroom and ducked behind the chairs at the dining room table. Someone was robbing them, that had to be it. 

He pulled out his phone and dialed his uncle. He spotted Julie, wrapped in a sheet, hidden in the closet. 

“Shh!” she motioned with her hand. She pointed to the door. Run, she was trying to say. Run. 

The call had gone to voicemail. As he listened to it, he heard Jessica’s voice. “I don’t know where he is –”

“Uncle Louis, someone’s in the house, and –” He hit the chair, which knocked the table, and a bag of oranges tipped over and rolled across the floor. “Oranges…?” 

The light clicked on and Daniel peered over the table and locked eyes with…Uncle Louie, hands crossed tightly over his chest. 

“Uncle Louie!” he exclaimed, trying for cheerful. “You’re home!” 

“You’re grounded,” he snapped. “Forever!”


End file.
